Trade's Beyond Dumb

DAVE HYDE Commentary

If You're Thinking Title Run, You Don't Deal Away Luongo.

June 25, 2006|DAVE HYDE Commentary

He was the face of an otherwise faceless franchise, the best among hockey's young goalies, the star who called the Panthers on Friday to sign on for years.

So naturally, in keeping with their role as South Florida's worst-run franchise, the Panthers never returned Roberto Luongo's phone call. Instead, General Manager Mike Keenan took the final step in months of mishandling Luongo's situation by trading him to Vancouver in a five-player deal for a decent player with severe baggage and a couple of young maybes.

This isn't dumb. It's beyond dumb. It's a mess. A joke. In other words, it's everything you have come to expect from the Panthers during a lost decade of management issues, player issues and, by extension, winning issues.

Celebrate even harder, South Florida, by peeking at the flip side of the Heat's rock-solid management.

As the fallout of this trade keeps falling, there's all sorts of ugly finger-pointing back and forth. About Keenan's intents. About whether Luongo's agent got too greedy. About who is most to blame. Those are all side dishes.

The real issue is whether the team's better today. And that answer depends: Do the Panthers just want to make the playoffs or actually try for a championship? Because you can make a case the Panthers are closer to the playoffs next season by adding forward Todd Bertuzzi, first-year starting goalie Alex Auld and serviceable defenseman Bryan Allen. If you're a mediocre team like the Panthers trying to get good, adding decent bodies helps put you there.

If you're thinking of a championship, though, you never trade Luongo. His talent takes a good team to great. That's always the more difficult leap to make in sports. That's why any good team with goaltending questions -- Ottawa, Detroit, Toronto and Vancouver -- was rumored to be after Luongo.

Luongo is by far the best player in this trade. Bertuzzi is the top name coming back. He's 32 next year. He tied for 45th in the league in scoring last season. He's dealing with all sorts of personal issues, from crushing an opponent's career with his hockey stick. He's also -- here we go again -- a free agent after next year.

Surprised? Angry? Confused? Stand in line, Panthers fans.

Smart management always deals with important issues before they become headlines, much less festering sores in the way this Luongo negotiation did. Think: Pat Riley talking to Shaquille O'Neal, behind the scenes, about shaving $10 million a year off his new contract to help the salary-cap-strangled team sign enough additional help to win a title.

That's smartly including a star in your plans. Trust is built. A relationship is cemented. That's how the best franchises do business.

Then there's the Panthers' way. Rather than sign Luongo to a long-term deal last summer, Keenan made Luongo become the only NHL player forced into the acidic process of arbitration. That saved a few pennies. It also was heavy-handed, shortsighted and understandably infuriated Luongo.

If you're looking back, that was the first sign Keenan was considering a trade of Luongo. He proceeded to frustrate Luongo even more by not getting a solid defenseman in the free-for-all of a free agency after the lockout season. That meant Luongo had little help in front of him again.

Along the way, there were gratuitous jabs, like stating how Luongo hadn't won anything, demanding he develop more and, finally, acting put out when Luongo declined a midseason offer. No wonder Luongo didn't trust Keenan.

So Luongo's agent asked for a little more money to sign a long-term deal? So what? Keenan couldn't return the call and lay down the law? Are we talking about what's best for someone's ego or what's best for the franchise?

Luongo wanted to stay here. He's said so repeatedly. He built a home here. His wife's family lives here. With a properly run franchise making the proper moves, it would have been a no-brainer to lock him up.

Once upon a time, the Panthers were that franchise. In their third season, they rode great front-office decisions, splendid goaltending and a lot of good luck to the Stanley Cup Finals. Riley sat in the seats at Miami Arena, hoping his Heat team could match that moment one day.

A decade later, after trading Luongo, times have changed. The Panthers might be closer to the playoffs, as they'll tell you. Big deal. The question is if they're closer to a title.

When you give up a great, young talent like Luongo, you're never closer. 1996 keeps slipping further away.